CHAPTER TWENTY

In the Air Tonight ~ Phil Collins

"I've seen your face before, my friend,

but I don't know if you know who I am."

Ronnie was sitting in a particularly dingy motel room in Chicago, Illinois, a boxy laptop sitting on her lap, a cup of coffee in her hand.

She was doing what she normally did whenever the Winchesters decided that three would be a crowd during a case — hanging back and trying to dig into what happened to her baby sister.

At that particular moment, she had the police report pulled up. She must've read over it a hundred times, but each time the description of what had happened to her sister felt like a white hot dagger to her gut.

Dismemberment….

Motive unclear….

Possible animal attack….

Ronnie put her head in her hands, refusing to look at the attached pictures. It just didn't make any sense. It never had to her, the idea that a demon would murder a child in such a way. Murdering kids in general… sure. Ronnie knew that demons were certainly not above killing children. But the way Alex had been killed, the grotesqueness of it… in so many ways, it didn't make sense.

She took a sip of the coffee, switching to a new tab, where she had a newspaper account of Alex's death pulled up. There was nothing much there that was helpful, but Ronnie often found herself reading it, as if to remind her that what had happened was real, and documented, and final.

On Thursday night, seven-year-old Alejandra Elizondo was found dead in her bedroom by her older sister, Veronica Elizondo. The cause of death is unknown, but foul play is suspected. Alejandra is survived by her sister, who moved away from Brownsville after Alejandra's death. Police have cleared Veronica as a potential suspect because of multiple eyewitness accounts placing her elsewhere at the time of death, and they are still working on this case, although there are no clear leads….

The door to the motel opened, and Ronnie jumped, some of the coffee spilling onto her jeans. She sighed, closing up the laptop and standing up as the Winchesters entered the room.

"Hey!" she said, a little too enthusiastically in an attempt to cover the abysmal mood she had found herself in. "Whataya got? Our kind of case?"

"Definitely," Sam said. "EMF readings were off the charts, and whatever killed Meredith took her heart."

Ronnie winced. "Yeah, yikes, definitely our thing then." She glanced over at Dean, who was throwing all his stuff down onto the floor. "The two of you look absolutely dashing in your disguises, I gotta say," she teased.

Dean looked down at his alarm company maintenance costume, and then back at her in annoyance. "It was Sam's idea," he said shortly.

"And it worked," the younger Winchester added brightly. "Listen, bud, we're gonna change and head to the bar Meredith worked at to brainstorm a bit and ask a few questions. You down?"

"Yeah," she said, tucking the laptop into her bag.

Dean's voice popped up behind her. "Still digging into Alex?"

She turned, surprised that he had been looking over her shoulder, and she took a step back from him. "Yeah," she said. "Not that it's doing any good."

"I'm sorry," he said, and she could see the authenticity of his apology in his eyes.

She just shrugged, turning around and grabbing a cuter tank top out of her bag. "It's okay. I'll find the bastard eventually."

"We will," Dean said.

She just nodded, not looking at him. "Well, I just need to throw this shirt on and brush my teeth and I'll be ready to go."

And she disappeared into the bathroom.

The bar was a particularly crowded one, which Ronnie was fine with. A more crowded bar meant more anonymity, which she always preferred anyway.

It was what she had loved about dyeing her hair dirty blonde for the past few years. She wasn't an idiot, it wasn't like being blonde made her unsightly or unnoticeable… in fact, many times it had made her feel powerful and beautiful and strong. But it did make her slightly more undetectable than she was with her dark red hair.

As it was, she wasn't going to turn many heads with said dark red hair tied into a knot on the top of her head and a loose scarlet tank top hanging off her shoulders. Her jeans, low cut on her hips, had a few holes in them, and not the kind that looked stylish or in vogue. She also briefly compared her boots to the strappy shoes most of the girls at the bar were wearing, and quickly determined that she probably wasn't going to be the hottest ticket with Chicago's singles that night.

This was further affirmed by Dean's relentless pursuit of the attractive, busty bartender. Ronnie watched from the table she sat at with Sam as Dean smarmed his way into a conversation with her. Ronnie observed the girl, noting her dark hair, wide luminous eyes, and prevalent, rather large breasts. Almost unconsciously, Ronnie looked down at her own, noting that even in her somewhat low cut tank top they looked rather small in comparison.

"Sam?" she asked.

"Hm," he responded, eyes skimming his dad's journal.

"Are guys only attracted to big boobs?"

At that, Sam lifted his head, giving Ronnie a disbelieving look. "Really? We're trying to figure out how two people got torn apart by a supernatural being, hearts stolen and all, and you want to try and figure out how the male mind works?"

She shrugged, swirling the straw in her water glass around a few times. "You're right," she said. "Solving the case would be infinitely easier than that."

"Are you trying to seduce someone?" Sam asked jokingly. "I'd pull your shirt down a bit and make sure your bra strap is visible if that's the goal."

"It's not," she retorted, but she did what he said experimentally, revealing a bit more cleavage and the smooth black strap of her bra.

Sam snorted as she did so. "Well, if your question was a way of asking if I thought your bra size is too small for someone to be attracted to you, then I'd say you're an oblivious idiot, because there are literally five guys in this bar currently staring at you and probably trying to figure out if I'm your boyfriend or if I'm just your friend or brother."

Ronnie's eyes widened a bit, and she looked around. She couldn't see anything of the sort. All she saw was a throng of people having fun on a weekend night. "Not true, Sam," she accused. "Besides, why would you even pay attention to that sort of thing?"

Sam looked at her like she was an idiot. "Bud, I've been paying attention to that sort of thing since we were kids. You always turned heads. I just wanted to make sure someone had your back if you turned a particularly creepy head. I mean, face it, the hunter's life is kind of a man's world, being on the road all the time, hopping from bar to bar and motel to motel. Sometimes I worried about you." He reconsidered. "Until you figured out your right hook, that is. Then I didn't worry as much anymore."

She tilted her head to the side. "That's… kind of sweet, Sam."

"It wasn't all that sweet when you were fourteen and just hit your growth spurt," Sam muttered.

She scanned the crowd, trying to see if she could make out anyone looking at her. She supposed she saw a few guys glancing at her from across the bar, but it wasn't as if she was making them salivate.

Not like that bartender who had Dean leaning across the bar looking like an absolute fool.

"I just don't get it," she said. "I mean, I'm kinda nice to look at, right Sam?"

He looked at her warily. "I'm not sure I like where this is going."

"I mean, I'm not hideous," she continued. "And sure, it's not like guys are repulsed by me, I've had a few hookups who'd vouch for me, I think. But then you've got girls like that," she said, waving over to where Dean and the bartender stood, "and they have men tripping over themselves trying to win them over."

Sam smirked. "Bud, are you jealous of that bartender?"

"What?" Ronnie said, momentarily stunned. "No! Or at least, not of her and Dean. Just… I don't know, of how effortless it is for her."

Sam considered her carefully. "Ronnie, no offense, but you've never even had sex with anyone before. Are you sure you want to be propositioned every time you walk into a bar?"

She blushed. "Well, no, but… I don't know, if I don't get in the game, then I'll never have sex with anyone, and I really think I've waited long enough."

Sam closed up John's journal, appearing to be done with it for now. "Why haven't you then?" he asked, clearly curious. "I mean, don't take this the wrong way, I say this as your lifelong best friend, but you're hot, Ronnie. Nearly every guy in this bar would want to sleep with you. I'm sure there were plenty of guys over the last four years who would've, too."

She was quiet for a moment, taking a sip of water. Then she looked at Sam. "I don't really know," she said candidly. "I guess it just wasn't a priority for me. I went on a few dates here or there, messed around a little bit I guess, but… I don't know, Sam, I was busy. I had this kid I was raising, a job. I was taking classes. I didn't have time." She paused. "And… look, I don't have fairytale princess delusions about my life, but I don't want to just give it up to a stranger at a bar. I want to at least know their siblings' names and which Harry Potter book is their favorite, you know?"

Sam laughed. "Yeah, bud, I know. I want that for you, too."

She just shook her head. "I kinda miss our talks, Sam," she said after a moment, grinning.

He grinned back at her. "Same," he admitted. He took a drink of his beer. "I gotta say, though, it's really weird to think about you having sex with someone, actually kind of gross and scarring, so if you could maybe just hold off until whenever I kick the bucket, that'd be great."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah well with our general luck that could be sooner rather than later, so knock on wood, okay?"

"Is that a sex joke?"

"Sam!"

They both burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?"

They both looked up to see Dean practically skipping back over to them, looking particularly pleased with himself. "Nothing," they said at the same time.

He looked at them for a moment longer, then shrugged. "Whatever. I talked to the bartender."

"And did you get anything besides her number?" Ronnie asked.

"Veronica, I'm a professional, and I'm offended that you would think that," he said. Sam and Ronnie just stared at him blankly. He snickered and held up a napkin with the bartender's number on it.

Ronnie rolled her eyes as Sam looked at Dean in mild exasperation. "You mind doing a little bit of thinking with your upstairs brain, Dean?"

"Look, there's nothing to find out!" he defended. "Meredith worked here, waited tables, everyone was her friend, she was normal. That's it. What about you? Did you find a connection between Meredith and the first victim?"

Sam shook his head. "Nothing I could find, at least yet. Ben Swardstrom was a banker, Meredith was a waitress, they never met, never had anyone or anything in common… I mean, they're from two totally different worlds."

"So to recap," Dean said, "the only successful intel we've scored so far is the bartender's phone number."

"You sure it's not fake?" Ronnie asked. Dean glared at her. Sam, on the other hand, had seemed to see something off in the distance, and he immediately stood up and left the table.

Surprised, Ronnie and Dean watched in silence as he made his way through the crowd until he came upon a girl with short, bleach blonde hair, and he tapped on her shoulder. Ronnie and Dean watched in shock as the girl's eyes widened and the two of them hugged.

"Do you know that girl?" Ronnie asked.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Dean replied, taking in the scene before him with mild interest.

With a mutual understanding, the two stood up and began walking towards Sam.

"What about you, Meg?" Ronnie heard Sam ask. "I thought you were going to California?"

"Oh, I did," the girl said. "I came, I saw, I conquered. Met what's his name, something Michael Murray at a bar."

"Who?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter. Anyway, the whole scene got old, so I'm living here for a while."

Dean cleared his throat, glancing over at Ronnie, but Sam ignored him.

"You're from Chicago?"

"No," the girl said, and Ronnie saw her eyes slide over to her before going back to Sam. "Massachusetts. Andover. Gosh, Sam, what are the odds we'd run into each other?"

"Yeah, I know," Sam said slowly. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"Well," the girl said, beaming at Sam in a way that Ronnie didn't quite like. "I'm glad you were wrong."

Dean cleared his throat again, and this time the girl craned her neck to glare at him. "Dude, cover your mouth!"

Sam turned to glance at Dean and Ronnie, and then he looked a little sheepish. "Yeah, um, sorry Meg. This is, uh, my brother, Dean, and my friend, Ronnie."

Meg took in the two of them, surprised. "Dean and Ronnie?"

Sam nodded as Dean tried to flip on his charm. "So you've heard of me?"

"Oh, yeah, I've heard of you," Meg said, eyes narrowing. "Nice, the way you treat your brother like luggage."

Ronnie's mouth dropped open slightly and Dean frowned. "Sorry?"

"Why don't you let him do what he wants to do? Stop dragging him over God's green earth?"

"Hey," Ronnie said, bristling at the bemused, slightly hurt look on Dean's face. "That's not fair."

Meg turned to her. "And you're Ronnie?"

Ronnie decided in one tenth of a second that she did not like this girl and wasn't going to make anything easy for her. She just crossed her arms and glared at Meg icily.

"Talk about the world's worst best friend," Meg snapped at her. "All you do is dump your problems onto Sam and then leave, why don't you ever give a damn about one of his problems?"

"Excuse me?" Ronnie exclaimed, taking a step forward. She felt Dean's hand on her forearm, stopping her.

"You know, it's weird," Meg sneered, continuing to glare at Ronnie. "For some reason I pictured you to be hotter than you are."

"Meg, stop, it's all right," Sam said, sounding a little nervous and guilty. "You don't need to do that."

There was a long pause, and then Dean gave a low whistle. "Okay, awkward. Ronnie, you wanna grab a drink?"

"Sounds great," she said coolly, turning and following Dean to the bar, leaving Sam with Meg.

Once they were out of earshot, Ronnie exclaimed, "I'm sorry, who the hell is that bitch?"

Dean looked over at Ronnie. "No clue, but I think Sammy's got the hots for her."

"You're joking?" Ronnie asked, stunned. "Sam's smarter than that, he wouldn't… or you know what, maybe he would. Apparently he doesn't mind unloading his dirty laundry onto her. What the hell?

Dean turned to the bartender, the one he'd just scored a number from, and ordered two beers, ignoring the annoyed look she gave him for walking up to the bar with Ronnie not ten minutes after talking with her.

As the bartender turned to pour the drinks, Dean looked back at Ronnie. "If I didn't know any better, Ronnie, I'd say you were jealous. Scared Sammy might've found a better friend than you after all this time?"

"Jealous?" Ronnie exclaimed. "Why does everyone think I'm jealous today?"

Dean looked at her with the hint of a grin, glanced back at the bartender, and then rested his gaze back on Ronnie. "What else would you have been jealous about today, freckles?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Nothing," she snapped. "I'm not jealous. I'm pissed. At Sam and… I guess at me, too."

"Why?"

"Because she was right," Ronnie grumbled as the bartender hastily slid her the beer and she took a long draw. "I am the world's worst best friend. I did focus on all my problems instead of Sam's. I mean, his girlfriend was brutally murdered and I've barely checked in on him!"

"You're not a bad friend, Ron," Dean said, slapping down some bills for the drinks and taking his own in his hand. "We all have a lot of crap going on. "

She took another drink of her beer. "And you don't treat Sam like luggage," Ronnie said. "How rude of her to just say something like that!"

To her surprise, Dean grinned. "Are you coming to my defense, Halifax?"

She looked at him like he was crazy. "Of course I'm defending you! That girl doesn't know a thing about us, she doesn't have the right to say stuff like that."

Dean nodded, looking back at Sam and Meg for a moment. "Yeah, I'm not her biggest fan. We'll ask him about her later. In the meantime," he said, "just relax for a second. We're in Chicago, we're at a bar, the work's over for now. Have a bit of fun."

"Fun," Ronnie repeated.

"Yeah," Dean said, his eyes sliding back to the bartender, who was cleaning glasses a few feet away. "Fun."

Ronnie grinned. "Oh, so by fun you mean, 'leave each other alone so we can find someone to hook up with.'"

Dean reconsidered. "That's not what I—"

"You're right, Dean, I guess I could use a bit of fun."

Her earlier conversation with Sam ringing in the back of her mind, Ronnie smirked at Dean, pulled her tank top down a little bit, and then turned to look at the guy at the end of the bar. He was one of the faces she'd seen turned towards her earlier, when Sam had assured her that plenty of guys had been checking her out. She sized him up for a second. He was tall, young, hot, probably only a year or two older than Ronnie. He was with a group of rowdy looking college boys, and it appeared he was probably a drink or two in already.

And he was looking right at her.

Bullseye.

She ignored Dean's protests as she made her way over to him, and she couldn't help but be insanely flattered by the immediate grin that slid onto the boy's face.

"Hey," Ronnie said, leaning her head on her hand and looking up at the guy from under her eyelashes. She watched with exhilaration as he turned his whole body towards her. "We just kept making eye contact and I wanted to say hello before it got too awkward."

He laughed, and she knew that while her sober flirting skills were rusty, she was doing something right. "I'm glad you did, we wouldn't have wanted that," he said. "I'm Matt. What's your name?"

"Veronica," she said sweetly, taking a step closer to him.

"I like that shirt, Veronica," he told her, staring down at her shirt a little too long. "Brings out your hair. And it's made you all I can look at the whole time you've been here."

"Thanks," she giggled. She heard Dean make a grossed out sound behind her. So he'd followed her over to Matt and his friends. She gave a little grin, and without looking back at Dean to see if he was watching — she knew he was — she took another step closer to Matt. "You look like you're having a good night with your friends, but I thought maybe I could steal a bit of your time."

"Tell you what," Matt said, taking a step closer. "You can steal as much of my time as you want, as long as we spend a little bit of it…."

And then his lips were hovering over hers, and she smirked, leaning forward and pressing her lips to his, feeling pretty victorious.

And as he deepened the kiss, opening his mouth so that his tongue could slide into hers, she sighed.

So she wasn't broken. She did have game.

"Okay, fun's over," she heard Dean growl beside her, and she pulled back from Matt to see Dean standing directly next to her, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

Matt looked at him, confused. "Who's this?"

"Boyfriend," Dean said shortly, glaring at him. "Very needy, very angry, very jealous. Don't wanna mess with me."

"Boyfriend?" Ronnie asked, eyes sparkling with amusement. "Kind of forward of you, Dean, I just wish you'd asked me on a proper date first."

"You're hilarious, Halifax."

Ronnie rolled her eyes. "Dean, what happened to fun?"

"I meant darts, Ronnie," Dean retorted. "C'mon, Sam's headed our way anyway, we're getting out of here."

Ronnie gave Matt an apologetic look. "Sorry. It was nice to meet you!" She looked back at Dean, the corner of her lip curving slightly upwards. "Who's jealous now, Winchester?"

"Very funny, Ronnie."

Her grin broadened. "You're right, Dean, I should have fun more often! I feel better already!"

Before he could respond she flounced away, and Dean trailed behind her, looking back at Matt in annoyance.

"So who the hell was she?"

Sam, Dean, and Ronnie were walking out of the bar, and Dean had turned to Sam the moment it was quiet enough to hear.

"I don't really know," Sam admitted. "I only met her once. I don't know man, it's weird, meeting up with her again like this. Something's not right about it."

"Well, yeah, something's not right with it," Dean pressed on. "I treat you like luggage? Ronnie's a terrible friend? So what, you were bitching about us to some random chick?"

Sam looked back and forth between Dean and Ronnie, an apology in his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry. It was when we had that fight when I was in that bus stop in Indiana."

"And what about me?" Ronnie asked. "We weren't fighting then. If I remember correctly, I was sobering up at Bobby's worried sick about you both. What was grinding your gears that day about me?"

"Ronnie—"

"Is there any truth to what she's saying?" Dean cut in. "I mean, am I keeping you against your will? Is Ronnie a self-absorbed bitch?"

"No, of course not, and I never said anything like that," Sam said sharply. "Now, would you listen to me? There's something strange going on here."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Dean said. "She wasn't even that into me."

Ronnie rolled her eyes and Sam looked ready to slap Dean. "No, man, I mean like our kind of strange. Maybe even a lead."

At that, Ronnie and Dean straightened up. "Why do you say that?" she asked.

Sam looked at the two of them in disbelief, as if it was wild they didn't see what he was seeing. "I met Meg weeks ago, literally on the side of the road, and now I run into her in some random Chicago bar? The same bar where a waitress was slaughtered by something supernatural? You don't think that's a little weird?"

"I don't know," Dean replied. "Random coincidence. It happens."

"It happens," Sam allowed, "but not to us. Look, I could be wrong, I'm just saying that there's something about this girl that I can't quite put my finger on."

Dean smirked. "Well, I bet you'd like to. I mean, maybe she's not a suspect. Maybe you've got a thing for her? Maybe you're thinking a little too much with your upstairs brain, huh?"

Sam rolled his eyes and Ronnie huffed. "Seriously, Dean?" she asked. "Remember the talk we had about hypocrisy, and how you can't get mad at me for kissing perfectly friendly boys in bars and then turn around and beg Sam to start banging shady, rude girls he met while hitchhiking."

Dean was about to shoot something back at her, but then Sam interrupted. "Look you two, do me a favor and check and see if there's really a Meg Masters from Andover, Massachusetts. And see if you can't dig up anything on that symbol on Meredith's floor."

"What are you gonna do?" Dean asked.

"I'm gonna watch Meg."

Dean snickered and Ronnie elbowed him in the side, not that it did anything. "Yeah, you are," he enthused.

"I just wanna see what's up," Sam said defensively. "Better safe than sorry."

"All right, you little pervert," Dean chuckled. Sam gave Ronnie a betrayed look when she couldn't help but crack a grin, too.

"Sorry, Sam, but I'm with Dean," she said."It's weird. And kinda creepy. And has all the stalkery vibes I would normally see as a major red flag in a man."

"Guys," he said, exasperated.

"We're going, we're going," Dean said, clapping Sam on the chest and then walking back to the Impala. Ronnie laughed.

"Seriously, Ronnie?" Sam tried again.

The smile fell off her face. "Hey, I'll start defending you again when you start venting about me to me instead of some bitch on the side of the road, okay?"

Without waiting for his answer, she followed after Dean.

Even though night had long since fallen, Ronnie was itching to release some of her pent up energy when they got back to the motel. Due to a shocking lack of rooms in the piece of crap dive they'd chosen, she was splitting a room with Sam and Dean, and so she quickly ran into the bathroom and changed into shorts and an old Rangers T-shirt before walking back out into the main room.

Dean looked at her like she was crazy. "Where the hell are you going?"

"On a run," she said, sitting down on the bed and sliding on her running shoes.

Dean stared at her. "On a run," he repeated.

"Yep."

"Like, using your legs."

"Correct."

"Right now?"

"Mhm."

"And you want to do that. No one is forcing you. You're not possessed."

"Not to my knowledge."

"Christo."

"Dean, running is good for you," she told him. "It's good cardio, it increases endorphins, it helps calm your brain."

"So you're not possessed," he muttered disbelievingly.

She stood up. "I'll be back soon, okay?"

"Ronnie, it's getting kind of late," Dean said. "Should you really be running around Chicago alone at night?"

"Worried about me, Winchester?"

"No," he shot back.

She gave him a look. "Somehow after all this time you still think I'd be stupid enough to go anywhere on this earth without a weapon? I'm all set, relax."

He scanned her body. "Where on earth could you possibly be hiding a weapon?"

"That's a secret I'll never tell," she told him, making her way to the door. "See you in a few."

Before he could come up with more reasons for her to stay, she was gone.

Ronnie's run lasted longer than she'd meant it to, but she'd hit a stride and knew she needed to ride it out while she could, since she never knew when she'd be able to squeeze in exercise while they were on the road.

Ever since her stay at Bobby's, she'd tried to keep some of the habits she'd made while she was there a part of her everyday life, and while she wasn't perfect at it, she did find that whenever she was able to eat a little better and move her body a bit, she felt ten times better. And running was one of the easiest ways for her to accomplish that.

Once she was nice and out of breath, she made her way back to the motel, and she stepped in the door to find Sam and Dean standing, their bodies tense, a set of files in Dean's hands. They turned as she came inside, still breathing heavily from the run.

"Great timing, freckles," Dean said, his tone light but his eyes dark. "This case just blew wide open."

"Oh," she said. "Well, damn, if I knew we'd be able to solve this in the timespan of one little jog I wouldn't have left. What's up?"

"We know what killed those people," Sam said. "And we think we know why."

Ronnie put her hands on her hips, trying to catch her breath. "Okay. I'm listening."

They brought her up to speed on what they'd discovered. A symbol left at the crime scene had led them to discover the creature was probably a Zoroastrian daeva, or evil shadow demon that could only attack by moving from shadow to shadow.

And both of the victims actually did have a commonality — they'd both been born in Lawrence, Kansas, Sam and Dean's hometown.

And even worse, Sam found Meg doing some sort of creepy satanic ritual in an abandoned warehouse.

Blew right open barely covered it.

"So… you think this has to do with the demon that killed your mom and Jess," Ronnie said, stunned. The boys nodded curtly. "I… wow. This is… big."

They just stood there.

She felt out of place, almost as if she didn't belong. She'd known about the Winchester quest to find the demon that killed their mother Mary for almost her whole life. She vividly remembered her dad explaining it to her when she was around seven or eight years old. And on top of that, she knew a thing or two about wanting revenge on a demon who had slaughtered the people you love.

So she knew what this meant to them.

"Have you… have you called your dad?"

"I will," Dean said firmly. She thought he was going to elaborate, but he didn't.

"Okay," she said slowly. "So what's our move?"

"Bud, you sure you want in on this?" Sam asked. "I mean, we don't know how bad this could get, and… all we really know is that this thing is big news and hard to kill and very deadly. And this isn't your fight, so… if you want out…."

"Sam," Ronnie said sharply. "If I'd wanted out I would've stayed in Brownsville and rebuilt my life there. But I'm here. You two… you're all I've got. You're my family. This is my fight too, now. I'll do whatever I need to do to help."

Sam looked at her with big eyes, filled with some inexplicable emotion. "Thanks, Ronnie," was all he said.

She looked at Dean. He was staring at her closely, as if she was a complicated math problem that he was just seconds away from solving. "Right," he said tersely, apparently giving up. "So the plan is to take everything we've got and take down Meg tomorrow night."

"That's it?" Ronnie said weakly. "That's the plan?"

"Got any better ideas, freckles?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "No. No I don't." She stared at the two of them. "Okay, then. Tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow night."

Dean's sleep was plagued with nightmares.

They changed rapidly, never lasting long enough for him to fully grasp. There was Sam, trapped in a burning building, with Dean trying every possible way to get in but finding an Impala parked in front of every entrance, making it impossible to save his brother….

There was his dad, standing over Dean, screaming at him, telling him his mother's death was his fault, that he should've done something, that he would always be the lesser son because of it….

There was Ronnie, lying unconscious and bloodied in the middle of an empty room, never opening her eyes despite Dean shaking her and begging her to wake up while Meg stood over them, whispering, "Why are you trying so hard to wake her up, Dean? After all, you're the one who did this to her."

He woke up with a start.

He sat up in his bed, looking wildly around until he realized he was in the motel room, and Sam and Ronnie were snoozing peacefully around him, Sam on the bed and Ronnie curled up in a ball on the pull out couch. His heartbeat slowly steadied as he watched the two of them, made sure they were breathing, made sure they were alive and okay and there.

The clock read four thirty in the morning, which meant he'd only been asleep for a couple hours. He knew he'd want to get more sleep if he was gonna be ready to take down whatever monster they were after, but he wasn't sure he'd be going back to sleep anytime soon.

"Dean?"

The soft whisper came from the couch, and when he looked back over he saw two blue eyes shining in the little strip of moonlight that fell from the motel window.

When he didn't respond, she sat up. Dean could see her hair sticking up comically where she'd been sleeping, but he didn't comment on it like he usually would.

He was thinking about his dream, about her laying there near death, about it being his fault.

"Go back to sleep, Ron," he said quietly.

She ignored him, standing up and walking over to his bed, her long legs stretching out from pajama shorts. He realized he didn't ever really see Ronnie's legs. Had they always been that long?

She sat down next to him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he muttered, eyes locking onto hers. "Go back to bed."

"I'm not an idiot, Dean," she told him gently. "You've been tossing and turning in your sleep for an hour. You said my name. And Sam's. And your dad's. You haven't gotten an ounce of rest."

"Apparently, neither have you."

"Well yeah, but I've always had sleep issues. You, not so much. What's up?"

He stared at her. "Tomorrow's big," was all he said.

To his surprise, she laid down next to him. Her hair smelled faintly like vanilla. "It is," she said. "And you need to get some sleep or you won't be ready for it."

His arm mechanically wound itself around her shoulders, bringing her closer to him. It was a simple gesture of two people who had known each other forever needing closeness and comfort. "We could kill the thing that ruined my family's lives, Ronnie," Dean said, staring at the ceiling, voicing it out loud for the first time. "The thing that killed our mom. That killed Jess. It's just… I don't even know what the world looks like if that happens."

She turned to lay on her side and look at him, and he shifted his gaze from the ceiling to her face, noticing that her eyes were so close to his. Dean wasn't sure their faces had ever been that close before, in all the years he'd known her. Even in the dark, he could see every light freckle on her nose.

"The world would be the same," she whispered. "But maybe you would be different."

In a moment of rare open emotion, he pulled her close to him, kissing the top of her head, and the corner of his mouth twitched up as she turned to curl into his side, one arm placed lightly over his stomach. He could feel her breath soft on his neck.

"Your heart's racing, Dean," she teased him softly, amusement just lightly lacing her words. "I didn't mean to make you nervous."

"No, freckles," he said truthfully, his mouth still at her hairline. "Tomorrow makes me a little nervous. But you're actually the first thing that's made me feel calm in a long time."

She was quiet for a moment. "Go to sleep, DW," she eventually mumbled, and when Dean glanced down at her, he saw her eyes were closed and her breathing had slowed down. "Get some rest. We need it."

And five minutes later, with Ronnie sleeping in the crook of his arm, he did just that.

When Ronnie woke up the next morning, she was in the same position she'd fallen asleep in. She was curled up against Dean, and his arm was around her, his chin resting on top of her head, each of his breaths gently blowing her hair.

It reminded her of when they were kids, and they would fall asleep in a pile of limbs on Bobby's couch or on a motel bed, waiting for their dads to come back for them. Although she knew this was different. For one thing, Sam wasn't curled up with them.

And she wasn't sure she'd ever needed to be there for Dean before. Usually, it was him being there for her.

Slowly, carefully, so as to not wake him, she untangled herself from his sleeping frame and turned to see that Sam was still in his bed, snoozing peacefully. She could've sighed in relief. It'd be easier not trying to explain to him.

Ronnie got up and slipped on a pair of yoga pants, a sports bra, a T-shirt, and some tennis shoes. Even though she'd gone on a run the night before, she definitely needed to get out again, and if she was lucky, she'd find a park she could get some stretching in, too.

As she jogged around a stirring Chicago, moving northward as the sun rose in the sky, she let her mind wander to the night before. Why had she laid down next to Dean in his bed? Why hadn't she just sat there, talked to him, walked him back from his mental ledge, and then gone back to her couch? Why did she fall asleep with him?

She'd have done it for Sam anytime, but Dean… things had always been different with him than they were with Sam. And that wasn't something she'd ever done before.

But she thought back to hearing Dean toss and turn, occasionally mumbling unintelligible words in what sounded like distress, and she just shook the thoughts out of her head.

All she had wanted to do was be there for him. And she had been. It was nothing more than that. Nothing more.

She ran, feeling a little twinge in her left knee, knowing she was probably overdoing it running twice in twelve hours after not running in a long time. She found a little park nestled between a few apartment complexes - although it was less a park and more a cement playground - and she lifted her leg onto a park bench so she could stretch out her tight leg muscles.

"Well I'll be damned. Ronnie Halifax."

Ronnie jumped up, heart racing with an immediate jolt of adrenaline, but when she saw who the voice belonged to, her mouth dropped open and her racing heart seemed to stop.

"John?"

Part 2 next update! See ya then!

~ Lacey :)